Tips and Tricks When Decorating Your Senior Housing Room

Home Sweet Home.

Moving to an assisted living community can trigger a considerable amount of stress and anxiety for a senior. An unfamiliar environment coupled with meeting fellow residents disrupts a stable lifestyle. How do you help your loved one make the transition from a large house living among family members to one of the dozens of small apartments occupied by new faces?

The answer is to make the new living arrangements as much like home as possible.

Senior housing facilities in Everett, Washington typically place a few restrictions on what residents can do when it comes to decorating their rooms. Major decorative facelifts such as painting the walls and changing the carpet are out of the question. Nonetheless, you can follow a few tips and pull a few tricks when decorating your senior housing room.

Plan Ahead

When you toured an assisted living community, you spent time in one of the showcase rooms to gain insight into what your senior loved ones should expect from living in a new home. With your insight and the wishes of your senior loved one, you can develop a vision of how to set up the room with furniture and amenities. Anything that you cannot move into your senior’s new home should either go to charity or another family member

Prioritize Function Over Appearance

When you think of the word “decorative,” you think about how something appears. For your senior’s new home, you should think more about function than appearance. Although you want your senior loved one to feel at home at the assisted living facility, virtually every item moved into the new homes should serve a purpose to help your loved one live as independently as possible. One of the most important tips when decorating your senior housing room involves adding multipurpose pieces, such as a storage trunk that doubles as an end table.

Safety Matters

Decreased mobility is a common challenge for many seniors to overcome. Throw in an unfamiliar living environment and accidental falls become a major concern. To minimize the risks that cause seniors to fall, decorate with safety in mind by clearing all pathways of cords, loose rugs, and decorative items that are tripping hazards. Ensure the senior housing facility in Everett that you visit has installed grab bars in the bathroom, as well as added other safety features to reduce the risk of a fall.

Go Green

Adding plants and flowers in a room at an assisted living facility accomplishes two important goals. First, plants and flowers enhance the ambiance of a room, which should help your senior loved one maintain an uplifting mood. Several studies have demonstrated there is a direct link between living among plants and the positive impact it has on mental health. Second, adding plants and flowers allows your senior loved one to develop a green thumb. Gardening represents one of the most beneficial activities seniors participate in to keep their minds and bodies healthy.

MorningStar at Silver Lake is one of many senior housing communities in our family that operate throughout the United States. We emphasize designing rooms that make our residents feel like they are living at home. Decorative touches such as optimizing bright colors, as well as natural and artificial lighting sources, create upbeat living environments for our residents. Connect with MorningStar at Silver Lake today to schedule an appointment for a comprehensive tour of our facility.